My year

Oy vey! 2012 ended with a heavy heart, but yet a joyous heart being surrounded by a couple amazing friends.

We wrote down our 2013 goals and we will see what December 31, 2013 brings and what was accomplished all year long!

2012 has been a wonderful, amazing, happy, glorious, beautiful, awful, hurtful, disappointing, heart-breaking year for many of my friends and me included. This has been a year of tremendous growth, new friendships, saying good bye to some, friends moving away, inner growth, spiritual growth, and so many other countless things. I traveled extensively this year. I've been to new states within the US and got to experience the joys and richness of these states and the wonderful people I got to spend time with and get to know on a more intimate level.

January I started my Sophomore year of college. Now that I finally had declared a major in art! January started with a big adventure and a wonderful expereince. I went to the March for Life in Washington DC for my first time of going to the March, as well as my first time in DC! What was suppose to be a 16 hour bus ride thru the night was not what happened. What a horrible storm we ended up driving thru and having to stop so frequently and the windshild wipers not exactly doing their job. Oh the memories! The way back home was much smoother; tho I distincly remember being the last one on the bus (keeping everyone waiting) because I was FINALLY getting my icecream I had been craving all weekend long! Then getting back to Notre Dame, to drive the 2 hours home, take an hour nap, do laundry, and head off to a full afternoon of classes. It was epic wwhen my prof asked "what did you all do this weekend?" And I say "I went to DC!"

February, I don't remember all that well. I know I was busy with school things, super excited and preparing for SPRING BREAK!

March. What I remember about March was going to Kissimee, Florida. It was my first time to Florida ever! I went to Cutting Edge Ministry with over 80 other people. We stayed in condos with 5 to 6ish people in each one. We made dinner together, and ate in other condos with other "condo families." We had small group time, and the conferences in the evenings. We sat by the pool, and read, and lauged, and joked, and just had a blast. On our free day, a group of 41 of us went kyacking. It.was.EPIC.! It was my first time and just absolutely amazing. I was told there were manatees and just when we thought we wouldn't see any, one went right underneath us! Soooo coooool! I want to go back March 2013!!

April was the end of the winter semester. I threw a grilling party at the end. How exciting to say that it wasn't the first time we grilled. Fortunately the 80 degree weather came back from Florida with us in March. It fluctuated between mild spring and hot summer for a long time. It was great, but sad that winter didn't stick around longer.

May. The start of what would be the hottest summer that I remember to date. We threw this gigantic pancake breakfast at church for the college ministry to raise money for our Missions trip. It was great fun and a good turn out! Afterwards, I went to visit a friend while she was at work which turned out to be one of the greatest summers of my life getting to know her.

June, I had high aspirations to graduate in December, but Baton Rouge, LA mission trip was what was placed on my heart. This meant taking the summer off and finishing classes in January 2013. This proved to be a huge blessing, and I was awarded a scholarship for Fall 2012/Winter 2013 for college! Yey! The mission trip was by far amazing. It was my first missions trip.ever. What a blessing to go with 26 other brothers and sisters in Christ within the college ministry!! At the end of June, my cousin had her precious baby girl whom I quickly fell in love with. I had a totally different perspective as I looked upon this precious angel and knew that she is fearfully and wonderfully made knit together to preciously and tenderly by God's own hands! And to think that we all share in this same wonderfulness!

July. July was super grand. I got to be in a parade! It was only the second parade I had ever been to in my entire life. Then I spent the day with a friend and her family up at their cottage. We got to see the pontoon parade across the lake. Grand adventure. I also brought two close friends out to the lake with me to my aunts cottage. It was later followed by milk-jug soccer on the beach with a third friend who joined us and then a trip back to her house where we took a trip to the store and made adult shamrock shakes and played video games until way too late. But totally worth it!!!!

August. The COLOR RUN!!! Such epicness. Such awesomeness. TEAM AWESOME. all the way! My first 5K. 3.1 miles in just about 38 minutes. Best time to date. I now have a goal of running more. Hopefully a marathon, or at least a half marathon is in my near future. The shinsplints have to stop. August was also my birthday month. I got to spend the day with one of my bestest friends ever. She was my chaufer and drove me all over town. She treated me to Chinese then we went thrift shopping and then dinner at the mall. Overall an epic birthday filled with laughter, shenanigans, and random awesome adventures. Then dad and I went to Nashville, TN for a "before school starts" shebang. It was wonderful. We stayed at the Opryland Hotel. We went to Grand Ole Opry. We went other random places. We spent way too much time and money in the arcade. But I got two angry birds out of it all. Those I will always cherish!

September. September. The first 6 weeks of school seem to be the hardest. Maybe because I am counting up to how many weeks I have left. Not quite sure. But I do remember trips to my friends family cottage a couple times. We had a small party up there with pizza and bonfire and a midnight swim. We spent the night and the morning started with bible reading on the boat and a gorgeous morning swim where the water was warmer then the air! Such a grand memory! Spending hours in the lake just chatting and sharing life together.

October. I think it was October, tho it may have been September, that I went to the cottage and was a chaperone for highschool kids. It was a night spent inside while the highschoolers sat around the bon fire doing what highschoolers do in the typical highschool fashion. Not that I would know. Haha, it just sounded good. We sat inside and sang songs and danced and got the cottage ready for the girls. Just as everyone was all tucked in and settled down for the night, we had a glorious, magnificent thunder storm! It.was.WONDERFUL!!! There were plans for what was sure to be the best Halloween party of all times, but due to unforeseen circumstance, the party was cancelled and we made our way to the movie theater to see Perks of Being a Wallflower. And while I don't typically watch movies, and tend to not follow plots and whatnot, this movie I followed and it hit home hard in many areas. It was the most disturbingly beautiful movie I had seen. I wish I had more words to accurately express how I feel about it, but that is what I know I can say at this time. It would definitely be one that I would see again.

November. A month of thanks. How anticipated Thanksgiving break was! It just could not come fast enough. I was swamped with homework assignments. I was drowning in homework and studying and speech writing. It was truly awful. Then break came and went. And the countdown until the semester ended was ON! I was blessed to celebrate 5 Thanksgivings with friends, family, and friends like family, over the course of 8 days. I am so very thankful for all the people I got to spend Thanksgiving with and all whom invited me into their homes and families to share in the meal. The blueberry pie that my Grandma made was most likely my favorite dessert all week long. I suddenly have a crazing to make a blueberry pie... hmmm. :)

December. December. THE END OF THE SEMESTER! I was thrilled that I passed my Anatomy and Physiology class. Hardest, unneeded class. BUT I PASSED! And my GPA still rocks. It was the hardest semester emotionally, mentally as well as spiritually. Never again do I plan to have such a ridiculous schedule as I had this past one. Next semester I can actually get on my preferred sleep schedule. It will be glorious. I've been working on getting on schedule now, but it hasn't been going too well. Perhaps once I am kind of forced to, I shall! :D Christmas this year was one of the best that I have ever experienced. I went to Midnight Mass with my dad and two of my friends. Then I was blessed to spend it with my best friend and her lovely family. We opened gifts and ate a late brunch of deeeeeee-lishounes, and then took naps and ate white bean chicken chili goodness. It was such a chillax kind of awesomeness kind of day. Then I went to my grandmas to visit family and eat icecream. It was a great time as well! Somewhere in there a group me and3 close friends went for a late night hike through the woods! As December 31 came, I found myself in a bit of tension with a dear, best friend. It was a challenging day, but well spent, keeping my mind off things with "rutabagas" and crafts, and 2013 goals, and a bonfire [which I used lighter fluid on....!!!].

The first two hours of 2013 were amazing. Followed by 5 hours of sleep and after some small conflict, it got better. A blessing kind of better. I am blessed to say that my friends and I are starting out 2013 well, knowing that God holds us so so so very close to Him and that He has great things in store for us. I am extremely thankful for each and every person in my life. Those who have come and stayed, those who have come and left, and those who are there and come and go and never get close but never get far.

Other great things that happened:
• We covered the 5 Love Languages in Small group. I learned that my top two love languages, tied, are Quality time and Words of Affirmation. No surprise there, right?
• I did lots of knitting and gave so much away. I have made so many things and held onto them, now is the time to give!! I am hoping to sell my things in the near future. :)
• It was good to have a 2012 summer break from college after going 4 semesters straight; including taking 3 math courses during the duration of 2011!! 
• Several of my friends bought houses.
• Several of my friends got jobs.
• There were many babies born.
• Many experienced deaths of loved ones.
• There were sickness and trial, heart breaks and break ups.
• There were make ups and engagements. There were weddings.
• People moving in, people moving out, people looking for new roommates.
• Growing in all directions.
• Hard separations and challenging decisions to walk away from friendships.
• Pride and humility. Selfishness and selflessness. Greed and gratitude and generosity.
• This was the first year in about 4 years that I did not have a boyfriend. Such a good thing basking in my singleness and being completely at peace about it. :)

Goals for this new year of 2013:
I would like to blog more. I would like to know things on a deeper level and write about them and share where I am at in life and what I am learning.
2013 is going to be a great year. I plan on graduating with my Associates Degree. I plan to travel and perhaps even go to another Country! [even if that only looks like going over the border!]
I want to love deeper. I want to strengthen friendships, relationships that I have. I want to meet new people. I want to have grand adventure and shenanigans.

This is a year of deep personal growth and testing and pushing, and pulling and strengthening and not being so uptight and resistant to the things around me changing.

It feels like "just another day" but it is so much more then that.
New Years Day is a day for resolutions to be made, but are all too often only to be broken shortly. I would like to be held accountable for my actions. Be held accountable for the decisions and choices that I make.

Live. Laugh. Love. All the time. One cannot love too deeply or too much, even if there is pain and hurt involved. Love like Christ Loves.